Thursday, February 17, 2011

Max Week (warning: lots of boring oly lingo)

So I've been testing out my lifts all week, and I was very interested to see if the loss of ~7kg in ~6 weeks would make a difference to my lifts.

Previous lifts: Snatch- 52kg, clean and jerk- 61kg, front squat- 95kg (all at 67kg)
New lifts: Snatch- 53kg, clean and jerk- 62kg, front squat- 90kg (all at 60kg)

Day 1: Max snatch and max front squat
Snatched 25kg x 3, 30kg x 3, 35kg x 3, 38kg x 3, 40kg x 2, 42kg x 1, 45kg, 48kg, 51kg, 53kg (f), 53kg (pr +1kg), 55kg (f)
They started out good, hips into the bar and bar very close but somewhere around 48kg I felt it get away from me a bit and I just couldn't keep it close enough. Whenever I manage to get it in the groove, it feels infinitely easier and it just wasn't happening like that today. The plan for the next snatch max day (Thursday) was to arrive about 30 minutes early and drill correct technique with the bar, forget about the nerves of maxing and concentrate really hard on keeping it close from the beginning of the warmup.
Front squat felt fine and only started to slow down at 90kg but failed 95kg. I was very surprised at this as I was pretty cocky that I'd get 100kg. With three more days to attempt it, not too worried.

Day 2: Max clean and jerk and max front squat
Clean and jerked (reps on the jerk): 42kg x 3, 45kg x 3, 48kg x 2, 51kg, 54kg, 57kg, 62kg (f), 62kg (pr +1kg), 65kg (f x 2)
Again, started well but once the bar got a little heavy, I had trouble keeping good technique. As you can see from the video at the bottom, cleans were ridiculously easy. I need to work more on dialling in good jerk technique when the weight gets heavy.
The exact same thing happened with the front squat. I had to consider that I've lost a little bit of strength with the bodyweight and the reason my snatch and clean & jerk have gone up a little is down to improvements in technique.

Day 3: Max snatch
Snatched up to 48kg, failed 51kg three times. Same thing happened as Monday but even worse as in the bar just got away from me and felt very heavy. I suppose correcting this will come with practice but it's frustrating all the same. I shouldn't have such defined expectations because I get very disappointed when I don't meet them. I was very tired today in particular and called it a day on the front squat at 85kg even though I was supposed to go to 90kg. I just wasn't sure I would make it and I thought it best to stay away from failure. It wouldn't really add anything to my lifting, just tire me out.
Coach reckons I should not bother with day 4 of max week and take a rest instead and I'm inclined to agree.

Conclusion: losing 7kg in bodyweight is not all that good for my lifting. I'd be lying if I said I was awfully surprised but I'm still disappointed.

Have a look at my video from this week anyway which I'd imagined was going to be a document of triumph but instead turned into a blooper reel. At least it has a daysent soundtrack, with many thanks to a fantastic band called Calico Jak. The song is called "Tore Down" and you can hear more from them at www.calicojak.com


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1 comment:

  1. Seems to me you're definitely being a weeee little bit oo hard on yourself....you've been wokring your ass off and I reckon you're just fatigued...had you had nay rest before these attempts.
    On the upside you're looking INCREDIBLE...so that side of it has definitely been a success - but it does show that there's more to life than being ripped! Get the focus back on the lifting and not killing yourself to lose a few lbs.
    Also you DID make progress in some of the lifts and that's not to be laughed at!
    Overall....my verdict....you little legend you....you've done GREAT!!! xxx

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